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LAST UPDATED ON Friday October 31 2003 |
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SOUTH AFRICAN RECORD FOR JANUS ROBBERTSMAY 26 2001Pretoria - Janus Robberts, the brilliant 22-year-old South African shot-putter continued his spectacular form in Fresno, California on Saturday when he set his third successive new African and SA record and also achieved the best performance in the world in 2001. He won his event at the Western Athletics Congress meeting with a tremendous distance of 21.60m and removed yet another bearded meeting record books. He also had three other puts further than 21m. It was a sensational and historical day for the burly product of a Levubu farm in the Northern Province of South Africa who first entered into world prominence in 1998 when he improved the global junior mark of Terry Albritton of America that was set in 1974 by 1cm to 20.39m. It was just the start of a most promising career. He enrolled as a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas in 1999 but, although he did well in intercollegiate meetings as well as a seventh spot in the Sydney Olympic final, it took him until the beginning of this year to establish a new personal record. He finished 5th at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and second in the 1998 World Junior meeting in France. Janus, who tips the scales at 126kg, took a good break after Sydney but then worked harder and more purposefully than before until he returned to Dallas in mid-January where he really took the athletics world by storm with some astonishing performances. It reminded of the sudden improvement by great Americans like Dallas Long and Randy Matson, to mention only two of the all-time greats. He was one of the stars of the US indoor season and twice recorded fantastic distances of 21.36m. Moving outdoors, he simply continued where he left off. He has not been overdoing things. In his first outdoor appearance on 7 April he started with a new South African record of 20.64m at a meeting in Austin, Texas and three weeks later, in his next outing with the shot, he improved to 21.22m to also add the African record to his collection. This meeting took place in Des Moines. Now, again three weeks later, he progressed even further with an addition of another 38cm to break a 26-year-old meeting best, while missing the Commonwealth record by a mere 8cm. Welshman Geoff Capes set the latter mark of 21.68m in 1980. The modest Robberts has now added a remarkable 1.21m on his previous best since the beginning of the year. At the same time he became only the third youngest athlete to achieve a distance of 21.60m at the age of 22. Terry Albritton recorded a fantastic 21.85m at the age of 21, while Randy Matson set a world record of 21.78m when he was only 22 years and 2 months in 1967. Robberts is currently also 22 years and 2 months old and occupies 38th place on the world all time list. He will have one more competition in the 2001 NCAA Championships in two weeks before returning to South Africa to prepare himself for the World Championships in Canada in August. He told his father by telephone on Sunday that he was not going to compete in any European meetings and will return to work with his coach, Dave Wollman in Dallas, on 12 July from where they will travel to Edmonton for the World meeting. He was hoping to do even better at the forthcoming NCAA event in Eugene, Oregon. Robberts' other marks in his latest exploit measured 21.01, 21.30, 21.46 and 21.60m. In the "old language" it means a distance of 70 ft 10.5 inches. While Robberts won the discus with a throw of 57.80m. Check out the Jumpstart Athletics Canadian National Throws Rankings for complete rankings in the throws. If you have news, results or info please let us know by using our submission form or emailing Larry Steinke [ MEET INFORMATION ] [ ANALYSIS & TIPS ] [ THROWS ARTICLES ] [ INTERVIEWS ] [ RECORDS ] [ RESULTS ] [ CLASSIFIEDS ] [ HOT LINK ARCHIVE ] [ DISCUSSION FORUM ] [ SUBMISSIONS ] [ THROWERS QUIZ ] [ GUESTBOOK ] | ||